The Rat Walked Away 4 (End)

For the past month Art had spent his time in a place that was not home. His worries fell away whenever the small shape flitted across the floor, beckoning him. Art would follow the dark blur out of his window and into the forest, his chest pounding.

Every time the rat came he led Art to a white house, older than any other in the village. Waiting in the unkempt garden was a boy just like him, and he would teach Art songs and stories he once knew. He told him stories about the house and how he lived inside of it, never desiring to go past the border.

He told him how his mother coddled him for all his peculiarities. He told him how a man Art did not know had one day visited and brought him his only friend- the rat from Europe.

As the autumn trees saw less and less leaves on their branches, the boy just like Art told him a final story. He told Art that rats can handle the pain of loss with great strength, that they must move on with their lives. However, a lonely rat that mourns is in danger, for the lonely rat will soon follow the deceased.

The Rat Walked Away 3

For over a week Ms. Hilden looked for answers about the previous owners of the house. She and Mr. Samson tried speaking to Art about his strange habits and whether or not he knew the people that used to live in the old building, but he would always look straight through them. They both felt helpless.

One morning, as December approached ever nearer, the landlady found that Art was nowhere to be found inside the boarding house. Mr. Samson went into the woods once more after one final request. He returned to Ms. Hilden with an uncharacteristically somber expression on his face. “I’m sorry…” He began, but then went silent and slumped into a chair.

“Whatever has happened?”

“I’m sorry. Oh, it’s terrible. I waited outside for what felt like an hour, but there was nobody there. So, I thought I should check inside the building…”

“Did you find him?”

“Yes and no. He was in one of the rooms, looking as if he was resting peacefully. I think he succumbed to the cold in his sleep.”

“Oh, no. Oh, no… Samson, I should have done more.”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“I should have talked some sense into him.”

“You know he didn’t listen to anyone. It isn’t your fault. There was something the matter with him.”

Some time passed and the two had put the troubling incident behind them. That is until a woman named Mrs. Green approached Ms. Hilden. Mrs. Green was a reclusive woman that ordinarily would not speak to anyone, but she heard that the landlady had been asking questions about the house in the woods and decided to come forth.

She told the landlady that the previous residents were a youthful mother and her son. Mrs. Green understood it that the house was given to the mother by the father, though he might as well had been a ghost as far as she was concerned. The woman died young from a serious infection, so the son then went to live with his grandparents in the city.

Mrs. Green adjusted the collar of her blouse while finishing her tale, “How do I know this? My late husband and I knew the boy’s grandparents when they lived in town. We stay in contact.

They’re good people. Out of their kindness they allowed their grandson to keep the old rat that he was so attached to, but after it died he stole money from their savings box and hopped a train away from home. They had written me to ask around for information about the child. I haven’t bothered until now, however, thinking my efforts wouldn’t do any good. Perhaps that was a mistake.”

The Rat Walked Away 2

When Mr. Samson did report what he had seen the last week, Ms. Hilden thought he looked perturbed, or perhaps dumbfounded. He took his coat off, gently shook his head, and then sat down at the kitchen table. “I really don’t understand it,” he said, removing his hat as the stove quickly warmed him, “but I will tell you what I saw.” Ms. Hilden poured Mr. Samson a cup of tea and joined him at the table to listen. “Yes, but let us keep our voices down, if you don’t mind. Mrs. Livingston has just gotten her little Abigail to bed.”

“I see. Ah, well then. I will start from the beginning.  As you asked, I tried my best to keep an eye out for the child, but for several days he just seemed to vanish. Then I was coming in from the backyard when I saw him jump down from his widow into the garden.”
“From a window? Whatever for?”
“I can’t say. Maybe he wanted to avoid those of us in the house? Regardless, that’s what he did every day. Another thing is he went off rather like he was in a trance. It bothered me how he followed the ground as if he was chasing some invisible thing. Every time he returned to this spot out in the woods.”
“It is no wonder he always comes back looking half frozen!”
“Yes.” Mr. Samson nodded, “He would end up at this old, dilapidated house. Did you know that there was a house out there?”
“Yes. I knew the young woman that lived there. It was the last of several buildings that were built in the woods, before Greenfield was even established. All but that one have been torn down. Ah, me. She used to come into town every now and then… I had wondered what happened to her.”
“The building seemed to have been abandoned for some time. Interestingly, the boy never went inside. He just stayed out back and weeded in the garden, talking to the shadows. I didn’t want to get close to him so that he would discover me, but I sometimes would catch bits and pieces. It was something about how ‘she’ was so much like ‘this one’, how ‘this one’ was eating leaves”.
“The poor thing sounds sick in the head. Do you think he had found some wild animal?”

“I was close enough to see there was nothing but a boy in that old yard. At first I thought he was speaking to me! I just about jumped from my boots.”

Ms. Hilden looked contemplative. “Unusual as this all has been, thank you for taking time out of your life on behalf of my concern. You are truly a kind man.”

“Truthfully, it is both a sense of responsibility I have to see that he doesn’t freeze to death, and also my own curiosity that keeps bringing me out there.”

With that he stretched his arms outwards, sighing, and proclaimed that it had gotten late. Ms. Hilden nodded in assent, thanked him, and they both turned in for the night. Ms. Hilden wondered what she should do. This was all strange to her.

The Rat Walked Away 1

Ms. Hilden was an elderly, unmarried woman with no children. She was, however, very maternal. She ran a boarding house in a small town called Greenfield. It was a gratifying role for the landlady, as Ms. Hilden loved cooking dinner for the boarders, looking after the garden out back, and being there for anybody that just needed to talk. Ms. Hilden’s guests could never think badly of her.

As the house and its residents were settling into early November, an unusual boy arrived at the Hilden House. His behavior troubled our kind landlady because he refused to eat or socialize with the others. Ms. Hilden would occasionally attempt to engage him in friendly conversation but all she could get from him was his name, which was Art.

She was troubled further by the fact that every day, for hours at a time, Art would disappear, only to return to his room in a state so cold that he was shaking.

Ms. Hilden had for a time wanted to find out what the child was doing, but that autumn was so deathly frozen, it was dangerous for her to stay out too long. So she asked a friend and boarder, a barber named Mr. Samson, to keep an eye on Art and perhaps discover what he was up to.